Chapter Text
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Benrey opened his eyes. And then closed them. And then opened them again. There was no change, which was weird. Above them was the same black nothingness whether their eyes were open or closed. With monumental effort, he lifted his hand and waved it in front of his eyes and crossed “going blind for mysterious reasons” off the list of explanations for what was happening. They also started a new mental list titled “why my body hurt so bad” because ow, why the fuck did lifting their arm a few inches make their whole body ache.
“Seriously, can I not catch a single break? Ever?”
Oh yeah, something had woken him up. A voice, ranting within earshot of them. That’s three out of five senses secured, win for Benrey.
He sat up slowly, groaning when that proved even harder than lifting his arm. They rubbed their face as their brain started kicking into gear. The voice that had woken him was loud, irritated, and familiar. Loud, irritated, and familiar… Sounded like…
The spark of recognition lit in their brain and their head snapped up so fast something in their neck popped. Ow, fuck, that hurt, but he had a bigger problem. That bigger problem was Gordon Freeman standing ten feet away from them in the void.
“Why?” Gordon was complaining, gesturing at Benrey. “Why are you here?”
“What?” Benrey blinked. Gordon continued glaring at him like he expected an answer. Benrey did not have any answers. “Why are you here, man? Where are we?”
“Shouldn’t you know? You’re the asshole manifesting in my lucid dream, for some reason.” Gordon crossed his arms, the stub of his right arm resting on the outside of his left.
“Lucid… What?” Benrey squinted. Dreaming was not a familiar experience to them, but they were fairly certain dreams weren’t supposed to feel like this. Gordon wasn’t listening, having resumed his pacing.
“I finally try to get some rest after the sleepless nights that you and the rest of the shithole that was Black Mesa inflicted on me, and this is where my REM cycle decides to land me!” Gordon was gesturing wildly. Following his movements was giving Benrey a headache, so he decided to lay down on his back again. “My subconscious is like ‘hey, you know what would be really restful? Really fucking healing for your psyche? If you spend your night in some- some lightless pocket dimension with the evil space god that chopped your arm off!’ Thanks brain! I’m sure I’ll feel bright and refreshed after this!”
Space god? “I’m not evil, dude,” Benrey said, rolling onto their side to look at Gordon. Haha, Gordon was sideways now. Who put my physicist on the Z axis.
Gordon glowered at him. “I beg to differ.”
“Dilfer,” Benrey’s nonexistent brain to mouth filter helpfully provided. Gordon made a weird noise between outrage and hysterical giggles, but Benrey wasn’t listening. They were too busy foggily remembering the last few minutes in their memory before they woke up in the void. “Hey, wait, did you kill me? That’s fucked up.”
“Yes! Yes, I killed you! I was hoping that would give me a bit of a reprieve from you, but I guess not!”
“Fuck, is that why my bones hurt? You do- You do a Batista bomb on me?”
“Do you seriously not remember?”
“I was kind of out of it, bro.” Benrey rolled again, now facedown on whatever solid surface the void had conjured as a floor. His helmet clacked against it, and the sound was joined by a piercing, repetitive noise. They lifted their head again, confused, and made eye contact with an equally confused Gordon.
“Is that my phone?” was all Gordon managed to say before promptly blinking out of existence. The alarm sound disappeared along with him.
Damn. Benrey completed the roll and ended up on his back again. They beeped out a few meaningless bubbles of light at the same pitch as Gordon’s phone alarm and watched them float away and out of sight. He let out a sigh and closed his eyes. Might as well give that whole sleeping thing a try. Not like they had anything better to do.
---
Benrey woke up partially submerged in a bright blue pool of water. He knew that slightly squishy floor. With slightly less effort than it took in the void, Benrey sat up in a cavern tucked deep in Xen’s underbelly. Gordon must have really fucked them up if their respawn point was pushed all the way back to Xen.
Benrey rolled his shoulders back and looked himself over. They were in one piece, but there was a little more exposed bone than they’d like and they could feel the tell-tale sensations of their inner organs stitching themselves back together. Damn, he’d really been knocked out of commission; he guessed he should’ve expected as much from a final boss fight. With a quiet groan of complaint, they managed to pull themself to their feet. As much as he appreciated being conscious, he begrudgingly had to admit it was going to take him at least another day before he could operate at peak performance.
As if drawn by their pained grumbles and the sloshing of water, a pair of vortigaunts peered curiously through the mouth of the cavern at them. Benrey waved. There were definitely worse creatures to encounter while half-dead on Xen; the vortigaunts were always kind to him, and these two were no exception, immediately expressing alarm at his injured state. They dutifully followed them when they offered to bring him to where they were working so they could keep an eye on him. A social mimic by nature, it didn’t take much work to dust off his old vortigaunt shape and shift into it, which earned him a politely impressed response from the pair accompanying him.
Vort work was mind numbingly boring, but luckily, this group’s job for the day wasn’t particularly difficult. It allowed them to do something rote while waiting for their body to finish recovering, and it meant they didn’t have to be on the surface where they might be eaten by something looking to take advantage of their weakened state. While he worked, he sorted through his thoughts.
What the fuck was that. Was it a dream? It seemed… way too real to be a dream. They hadn’t even thought dreaming was something he could do . Gordon had sure seemed certain it was a dream, and he’d been yanked out of it by his phone alarm, so that might’ve made sense.
For all its weirdness, though, Benrey wished it had been longer. Would’ve been nice to have someone to talk to instead of just laying alone in the void waiting for the code to figure out where to put him, even if that someone was the dude who had just killed him and put him in the void in the first place. Rude. Benrey decided his first order of business once they saw Gordon again would be to call him out on his bad manners. Come on, man, Benrey wasn’t human, but even he knew you’re supposed to kiss the homies, not kill them. Bro code 101.
Their last thought as they laid down among the vortigaunts that night was the decision that as soon as their body was done fixing itself, they were going back to earth.
---
His second time opening his eyes to the void, Benrey was surprised but not as disoriented. They also gained awareness before Gordon, which was a plus. Benrey hopped up to his feet and walked over to where Gordon was laying on the ground.
"Gordon, wake up! You fucked up big time," Benrey announced, standing over him.
“Benrey,” Gordon groaned. He then jolted awake, scooting away from Benrey. “Gah! Don’t do that, dude!”
Benrey rocked back on their heels and dropped criss cross onto the floor. Gordon glared at him from a safe distance away, still looking bleary. “Welcome!” Benrey yelled. “To the void! Hey, so why are we here?”
“Why’re you asking me? I’m just as confused as you, asshole!”
“I thought you were a scienticist. You could’ve been figuring out this dream thing with your science powers while I was hangin’ out with Vonneguts.”
“Hanging- What?” Alarm flashed across Gordon’s face. “You’re alive?”
“Yeah.” Benrey propped their chin on his hand, elbow resting on their knee. “Gamers don’t die, we respawn, or something.”
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” Gordon jumped to his feet and began pacing anxiously. Ugh, this again? “No- You- Okay, you stay over there, alright? Don’t- Don’t fucking come back to Earth. I already killed you once, and that is more than enough.”
“Oh, yeah.” Benrey perked up, remembering the order of business he’d decided on the day prior. “That was fuckin’ mean, man. Haven’t you- Haven’t you read etiquette books? It’s what they’re all saying, these days. Number one on every list, don’t kill your friends. Gonna boo you outta my dinner parties.”
“We’re not friends!” Gordon insisted, glaring at them with wild eyes. “In fact, I don’t even know why I’m having this conversation with you, you’re not real! You’re- You’re a figment of my imagination! You’re something my brain cooked up to process trauma or- or guilt or something!”
Benrey raised an eyebrow, his expression otherwise impassive. Guilt? “Nah, I’m real, bro. Well, real as anything else, I guess. Definitely not dead.”
“No, no, I killed you! This?” Gordon gestured at the lightless void around them. “This isn’t happening! You’re just a dream!”
“How do I know you’re not a dream, huh?” Benrey stood up, starting to itch with the same anger Gordon was throwing at them. “I went sleepytimes with the pomegranates, I’m a bear in a rocking chair with a sick nightcap, and then you show up and start yelling at me. Why are you even still here? What gives, man?”
“What gives? What gives?”
“Yeah, answer the question?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know, okay?” Gordon yelled. Somehow they’d ended up chest to chest, Gordon looking down at him with a sharp glare that Benrey met with a cold look. “All I know is that my life has gone to shit , nothing makes sense anymore, and you’re at the heart of it!”
“Calm down, maybe.” Benrey opened his mouth, blue Sweet Voice rising up his throat. Gordon ducked out of the way and shoved him, but Benrey continued undaunted, filling the area around the two of them with countless blue orbs.
“Stop, stop, just stop!” Gordon waved the Sweet Voice away furiously. Benrey spat a ball of Sweet Voice directly into his mouth. Gordon stumbled back in surprise when the bubble popped against his face. He then popped out of existence.
Benrey stared at the Gordon-shaped hole slowly being filled with the Sweet Voice lazily floating by. “Fuck,” they muttered. An angry red string of Sweet Voice burst out of him, melting the blue orbs on impact. That guy. That fucking guy. Where’d he get off yelling at Benrey like that, huh? Not like Benrey wanted to be in this weird dream void either. Not like Benrey asked to be the big bad. They didn’t ask for any of this.
Benrey sat back down and sang his tumultuous emotions out into the expansive void until he woke up.
---
Benrey leapt from island to island on Xen, slipping into the shadows and shifting into whatever form fit their surroundings best. He missed his familiar human form, but there was no way he would be able to get around on Xen that way; he’d stick out like a sore thumb and get eaten alive. Plus humans weren’t nearly agile enough to get where they needed to go.
It took scurrying through deep tunnels and shifting small enough to slide through narrow cracks to get there, but he finally arrived in front of the portal he’d discovered so long ago. They were honestly surprised no one else had found it yet, but they supposed most of the creatures intelligent enough to go exploring couldn’t fit in the tunnels or squeeze past the rubble that blocked the cavern in which the rift resided.
He paused in front of the portal and took in a deep breath as he morphed his shape into the human-adjacent form he’d spent the past several years perfecting. They even included their security vest and helmet for good measure, their weight a solid comfort. Without a single glance back at the stink planet he’d never really called home, he dove through the portal.
When they first explored that portal almost a decade ago, it had dumped them in a supply closet in a secluded corner of Black Mesa. It had taken him a few days of lurking like a darker patch of shadow and sliding through the vents to scope out his new environment before he settled on a human form he wanted to mimic. A new security guard appearing out of nowhere definitely raised some eyebrows, but despite the absentminded vibes he gave off, they were remarkably adaptable by nature. Black Mesa soon decided it had more pressing issues than a strange, but otherwise harmless guard.
Now, the portal deposited him under fifty layers of rubble. It took some grumbling, shoving, and eventual no-clipping for Benrey to emerge from the blast crater of garbage that was once the Black Mesa Research Facility. Damn. They perched on the edge of the crater, looking over the scar Black Mesa left on the landscape. All his stuff was in there, too.
Still. It was better to be alone in the middle of the New Mexico desert than stuck on Xen.
Benrey turned in the direction their internal map vaguely told them was the nearest town, and they began walking.
---
“So is this just gonna be how it is every night?”
Benrey groaned instead of verbally responding. Goddamn, Gordon couldn’t wait for him to even open his eyes before starting to bitch at him? “I’m tryna sleep, man,” they grumbled, throwing an arm over their eyes as if to block out the nonexistent light.
“So am I, asshole. That’s why we’re here.”
Benrey sighed and sat up. Gordon was sitting a few feet away, frowning. “What d’you want me to say?” Benrey said, leaning back on his hands. “I don’t know why this is happening.”
“There has to be some kind of reason,” Gordon muttered, biting his thumbnail.
“You got theories, science man?” Benrey drawled. “Hippopotamuses?”
Gordon squinted at them for a long moment. “Wh- do you mean a hypothesis?” Benrey shrugged. “Yeah, I- I mean, maybe . None of them make sense.”
“None of this shit makes sense.”
“That might be the first true thing you’ve ever said to me.” Benrey frowned, about to counter that statement (rude, he said all sorts of true things), but Gordon had already started on a roll. “Okay, theory one: my brain has some fucked up ways of processing trauma. You’re just some illusion I’ve cooked up to cope with the absolute hellscape I just went through. You’re a- a representation of my fear, or something. Some Freudian bullshit like that. I have to somehow come to terms with my trauma before I can get rid of you.”
“Mm, that’s cool theory, but I’m real though?” Benrey smacked their lips. “I’m not a brain ghost, or whatever.”
“Yeah, but I can’t believe you when you say that! That’s just what a dream hallucination would tell me to convince me it’s real!”
“That- What? Ugh.” Benrey flopped backwards. “Okay, but what if you’re my dream hallucination. Huh?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Gordon said dismissively. Benrey lifted his head and gestured around as if to say “duh!” but Gordon shook his head. “No, I know that’s not it, because I have a life outside these dreams.”
“Yeah, me too. I’m, like, sleepin’ in a cave in the Chihuahuan Desert.”
“You- What?” Gordon suddenly looked ill. “Like, the desert in New Mexico?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re back on Earth?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck you.”
“This isn’t that kind of dream.”
“Shut! Up!” Gordon groaned, rubbing a hand down his face. “Fine! Theory two: this is some weird alien dream sharing bullshit.”
“Mm. I mean, maybe. Vortigaunts have got that, like, psychic thing. I don’t think that’s something I can do, though.” Benrey stretched and sat up again. “Didn’t think I could dream until recently, though, so who knows.”
“Hm.” There was a weird, pensive look on Gordon’s face. It wasn’t a positive expression. “I, uh… Yeah, no, these dreams are definitely… new for me too.”
Well that was a weird sentence. Benrey squinted at him, confused. “Uh, yeah. You got anything else to add, dude?”
“Not really.” Gordon sighed and shook his head, looking defeated. “I dunno. Maybe it’s ‘cause I killed you, maybe it’s a fucked up kind of afterlife, maybe it’s something Mr. Coolatta could explain, maybe it’s… it’s the…” He trailed off. Ah. Benrey understood that weird expression now.
“Maybe it’s the game.” Benrey finished for him. Gordon looked up at them suddenly, eyes big like a startled cat’s. Benrey was unfazed. “Yeah, could be. Some fucked up bit of code or something. I mean, I’ve always been glitchy, and you shouldn’t even still be here-”
“Stop.”
“Can’t be here without a player, man, are you supposed to be here? You got certifications? Do you have permissions to access this file?”
“Stop!”
“Gonna have to report you for hacks. Take you to recycle bin jail. How’d you get past the captchas?”
“I said stop it!” Gordon yelled. Benrey went quiet, his mouth a tight line. “You- You shut up about that, okay?” His voice was shaking, Benrey noticed. More bitter comments about the game sat sourly in the back of their mouth, but they bit their tongue. “You’re the last person I want to hear that kind of shit from.”
“Don’t wanna talk to the big bad? Rude protagonist, skipping my dialogue,” Benrey couldn’t resist interjecting, clicking his tongue judgmentally.
“Shut up!” Gordon snapped. His left hand was curled into a fist, and the stump of his right arm rested protectively over his midsection. Benrey fell silent. “God, I don’t know why I fucking bothered talking to you about this when I knew you would pull this shit!” He jumped to his feet. “You know what, fuck it! I might be put in this dream with you, but I sure as hell don’t have to stay here.”
“Where are you going?” Benrey asked, standing up as Gordon began walking away from them. Gordon gave him the finger and continued marching off into the void. Part of Benrey wanted to follow at his heels and keep annoying him, but something made them stay put.
He’d always loved pissing Gordon off. It was fun to joke around with him because there was always the chance it would make him laugh and wheeze, but there was also the chance it would get him riled up, and that was fun too. That itch to push Gordon’s buttons was probably what ended Benrey up in the antagonist role in the first place. Fine, whatever. They could deal with that.
But Gordon hadn’t just been angry, just then. He’d been scared, Benrey realized. Really and truly existentially terrified. Making Gordon scared wasn’t nearly as fun as annoying him. A feeling somewhere between guilt and pity rose out of him in gray and brown Sweet Voice.
Morning couldn’t come soon enough.
---
Benrey definitely raised some eyebrows strolling into the credit union, but the bank had been servicing Black Mesa’s employees for years; they’d seen worse than a half dead, dirt covered person wearing a bulletproof vest. The bank teller they talked to luckily knew better than to ask any questions while she pulled up the account under the name Benry Stong. Miraculously, it was still active and his most recent paycheck was sitting in it, untouched. They withdrew it all in cash, then immediately located the nearest hotel and bought themself a room.
As he showered off the layers of dust he managed to accumulate by walking through the desert for two days, he thought about how weird it was that the credit union was there, that people were still in it. How weird it was that this tiny little town had a hotel, how weird it was that they could stand in a shower and marvel at the water physics that pooled in a tub that was just slightly too pristine to be realistic.
None of them had thought this was a possibility. He’d never managed to get Tommy and Bubby’s thoughts on the matter, but the one time he managed to talk to Coomer in private behind a loading screen, he knew the old man thought someone -- implicitly understood to mean the Player -- might be able to isolate their codes and port them elsewhere. Benrey thought they’d be lucky if that was the case; they thought it would be much more likely if they just shut down the moment the game ended. Permanent sleep mode, a return to the dormant state they’d all rested in before the Player had booted up the game the first time. It was a pretty dismal option, but at least they wouldn’t be conscious of it.
He hadn’t expected to wake up in the void. They hadn’t expected to wake up outside of the void. Most of all, he hadn’t expected to see Gordon again. Like, ever. The game was over, the Player was gone, and yet here they all were. Against all odds, they found themselves in their own little epilogue.
Benrey flopped down on the hotel bed, still slightly damp, and turned on the TV. Guy Fieri’s face appeared on the screen, excitedly talking about the sloppiest looking burger Benrey had ever seen, but they weren't really processing it. He had never really cared about sleeping before, but now, he watched the setting sun out of the corner of his eye, waiting for night to fall. There was a conversation they needed to have.
---
The void was silent when Benrey woke, and for a second, Benrey thought he was the first one up again. They were surprised to sit up and find Gordon sitting a short distance away, already awake and lost in thought.
“Hey,” Benrey eventually said, breaking the silence. Gordon glanced at him, then glanced away, his mouth pulled into a tight frown.
“Hey.”
Benrey scooted on their butt until they were next to Gordon, who surprisingly didn’t move away from them. “Whatcha thinking about, friend?”
“When did you figure it out?” Gordon said suddenly. Benrey startled at the question, though he didn’t show it on his face.
“What, you mean the dreams?” Benrey asked, playing dumb. “I’ve been telling you, man, I don’t know.”
“No, ugh-” Gordon ran a hand through his hair, his curls loose from their typical ponytail and laying on his shoulders. “When did you figure out we were… in a game,” he finally managed to spit out.
Benrey hummed in thought, leaning back on their hands. “When the game started.”
“Really? That early?”
“Yeah. I don’t think I was supposed to know, but…” He shrugged. “Guess they fucked up some of the lines of my code. Some fuckin’, uh, some fuckin’ nerds programming us were like ‘hell yeah, time to code that security guard’ and then some dumbass spilled, like, a whole can of beans on the console. Oh noooooo, now they're a weird alien that knows they're in a video game. Oh well.”
The beans comment made Gordon snort, but he still looked too stressed to really appreciate the joke. “Were you always the villain?”
“Nah. Hell no.” Benrey shook his head. “Could’ve been anyone. Tommy, Coomer, Bubby, some kinda Xen monster… But, uh, you hated me. So. Game made it easy on you.”
“I wouldn’t call any of that easy.”
“Would it have been easier if it was Tommy? Huh? Think with your brain, dummy.” Benrey bonked Gordon gently with their knee. Gordon looked pained at the idea and didn’t say anything else. “What about you?”
“Uh…” Gordon let out a shaky, humorless laugh. “After we fought you, Mr. Coolatta took us to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate Tommy’s birthday. I think it was… some kind of credits scene or something? I don’t know what it was, but that was the first time I was… me. Just me. The first time the- the Player wasn’t controlling me.” Gordon shuddered at the memory. “I’m sure he knew the whole goddamn time, but that was the first time I was able to think without him in my brain.”
Benrey sucked in a breath through his teeth. “That’s fucked up, man.”
“Yeah.” Gordon laughed the same hollow laugh. “It’s pretty fucked.”
The two of them sat in silence for a while, both staring off into the void. Eventually, Gordon spoke up again.
“You know what’s the worst thing?”
“Hm?”
“You guys had, like, base codes, right? A basic personality and backstory and a role, and then you started developing based on what I-” He grimaced and corrected himself, “Based on what the Player did.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t have that. That’s the most fucked up thing. They gave me the most barebones backstory, but left everything else fucking empty . I guess it’s better for the Player’s immersion or something, giving him room to play however he wants, but I don’t know where his bullshit ends and I begin.” Gordon turned to face Benrey fully for the first time that night. “Like- Like, Joshua. You remember when we went to my locker, and we found that baby photo?”
“Oh, yeah.” Benrey nodded. “Your shit kid.”
“I didn’t have a kid,” Gordon interjected sharply. “I think it was just a- a- a fucking joke for the Player, but you know what the game did? It took that joke, and made up a backstory for it on the spot. He said that, and suddenly I remember my son, he was only a year old when we took that picture, and he’s got the cutest curls and big brown eyes, and I share custody of him with his mom, who I met in college, and I remember being pregnant with him while doing finals my junior year. None of that had existed a minute ago, but I remember it so vividly. Where the fuck did that come from?”
Benrey stared at him impassively for a long minute. “I mean, isn’t that how it all is? Like, I’m working at Black Mesa for years, before that I was a little- uh. Cuttlefish. Chameleon. Lil shapeshifter crawling around Xen. But then I’ve been hangin’ out on Earth and I’m friends with all the guards, and it’s cool and chill. But like, that didn’t happen. Wasn’t in the game. I still remember it though.”
“Doesn’t that fuck with you?” Gordon hugged his right arm around his stomach, looking existentially nauseous. “That everything you know is just- just lines of bullshit in C++?”
“Fuckin’ nerd, knows names of coding languages.” Gordon looked a little like he wanted to strangle them, but Benrey continued speaking before he could. “Nah, it doesn’t fuck with me. Why’s it matter? We’re still like, conscious or whatever. Your shit kid, Josh, is he here? Not here , but in the-” Benrey gestured vaguely, “The epilogue thing.”
“Uh, yeah, why?” Gordon looked bewildered by the shift in topic.
“Do you love him?”
“Of course,” Gordon replied immediately and without hesitation. Benrey gestured as if to say “there you go.”
“That’s all that matters. Yeah, it’s lines of code, but dude, all of it is. We’re actually ahead ‘cause we’ve got backstories and aren’t some chump NPC working at Chunky Cheese. Don't think about it too hard or else you won't have fun. You just gotta worry about what you’re feeling and not worry about whether it’s real or not.”
Gordon stared at him like he’d grown a second head. Benrey subtly took a second to make sure they hadn’t actually done that. “Man, you are the last person I expected to have a philosophical conversation with.”
“I can go back to talking about passports if you want. You get yours renewed yet? Huh? Get a new picture that doesn’t have a loser mullet?”
“Shut up, dude.” Gordon shoved at him, but there was a playfulness that had returned to his tone. That tone soon vanished as he took in a shaky breath that came out as a half sob. “Shit, sorry, this is just- it’s a lot. I’ve been kind of avoiding talking about this whole thing for a while.”
“It’s okay.” Benrey fidgeted awkwardly, not sure what to do when someone was crying. “You’re takin’ it better than Coomer did.”
“He did try to kill me, huh?” Gordon let out a watery laugh, but it was muffled by him rubbing his face to wipe away tears. Benrey hesitated, then scooted in the last few inches to press against Gordon’s side. Surprisingly, Gordon leaned his full weight against him almost immediately, reaching out with his left hand to cling to Benrey’s sleeve. Benrey gently pulled their arm away to instead wrap it around Gordon’s shoulders, awkwardly patting him. Unsure what else to do, he started singing soft notes of Sweet Voice, soothing tones of purple, green, and off-white filling the air around them.
Benrey woke slowly that morning with the phantom sensation of Gordon’s tears against their shoulder.
---
Despite everything, Gordon still pinged in Benrey's brain as the player character. Even in this weird epilogue environment that shouldn't logically exist, he could figure out the general area where the protagonist was hanging out, in the suburbs outside the closest largish city to the former location of the Black Mesa Research Facility. It must’ve been a hell of a commute, but Benrey supposed Gordon could have moved after the main plot ended. That, or the game didn’t account for traffic or long commutes. Regardless, it took surprisingly little effort for Benrey to secure a rental car and begin driving in that direction.
Gordon lived towards the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in a wide, humble looking bungalow with a huge yard. The house itself looked like it hadn’t been renovated since the seventies, but the forsythia bushes that lined its porch were in full bloom and clearly well loved. Benrey parked on the gravel driveway and walked up the front steps to ring the doorbell and knock in quick succession. After a couple seconds of silence, they knocked again, more insistently.
“Coming!” called out a familiar voice from inside. Benrey put his hands in his pockets and waited patiently as he heard footsteps approaching the door. There was the sound of a deadbolt being unlocked, and then the door was open, Gordon on the other side.
“Yo,” Benrey said.
Gordon slammed the door in their face.
Benrey blinked at the chipping paint where Gordon’s face was just a second prior. Rude. Seriously, who taught this guy manners. Benrey had eaten all the rule books on How To Behave Like A Human. He knew you weren’t supposed to just slam doors in people’s faces. They also knew people tended to respond poorly if you no-clipped through their doors, so they stayed put on Gordon’s porch, staring at the closed door. Behind it, he could hear frantic pacing and what sounded like Gordon muttering anxiously to himself. Damn, was he good?
“Dude, are you good?” Benrey asked, voice raised just enough to carry through the solid wood. The pacing sounds stopped, and a few seconds later, the door opened again.
“Why are you here?” Gordon said, ignoring Benrey’s kind and friendly question.
“Where else would I be, man?” Benrey shrugged.
“Literally anywhere else. The void. Xen. Wherever the fuck you used to live.”
“I lived in Black Mesa, dumbass. Big, uh, big stupidhead forget Black Mesa got exploded? The void and Xen are boring. They don’t have PS1 or PS2 there. I know you got games, talkin’ about Justin.tv and Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, so, uh, lemme in? Play video games with friend Benny?”
Gordon narrowed his eyes. “If I say no, are you just going to stand on my porch like a sad puppy?”
Benrey blinked slowly at him. “I mean, I can leave. Figure out where the Boomers are or something.”
“No, I-” Gordon sighed like he knew he was going to regret this and stepped aside, “Alright, fine, you can come in.”
“Sweet.” Benrey walked in and looked around the room. Comfy looking couch, pile of half-formed Lego creations in the corner, big TV. Ugh, was that an Xbox? Whatever, Benrey could make do. They looked back over at Gordon and gave him a once over too. It was weird seeing him in a t-shirt and jeans instead of the HEV suit, but he’d been showing up in the dreams in pajamas, so it wasn’t that weird. The high-tech prosthetic on his arm was new, though. Benrey stared at it for a second before realizing Gordon was talking to him.
“You’re lucky this isn’t my week with Josh, otherwise I would’ve hit you right off the porch.”
Benrey tilted their head curiously. “That thing hit like the gun arm? Why you hittin’ your guests, man, bad host moments.”
“I’m not a host, dude, you just showed up at my house.”
“Yeah? What if I start breaking your vases, huh?”
“My-” A startled wheeze of a laugh escaped Gordon’s throat. Benrey allowed himself a smug smile and flopped down on the couch. “You’re such a dork, I can’t believe you.”
“Says the guy with every Lego video game,” Benrey said, gesturing to the video games on the shelf underneath the Xbox.
“Shut up, those are Joshua’s.” Gordon’s excuse melted under Benrey’s disbelieving stare. “They’re fun, fuck off.” He kicked Benrey’s leg, and Benrey let out a perfect recreation of the Lego Yoda death sound, making Gordon wheeze with laughter again. Gordon sat at the other side of the couch, and they both lapsed into silence. Benrey continued looking around the room, glancing over the decorations and framed photos lining the walls. At least those pictures weren’t horrifically pixelated like the baby photo in Gordon’s locker. Most of them seemed to be of Gordon and his son, but Benrey spotted a few group photos with the Science Team. Benrey’s eyes skated through the room, then finally landed on Gordon again once they exhausted all their entertainment options that didn’t require getting up. Gordon had a rather constipated look on his face, like he was trying to decide whether to say something.
“What’s happening on your face, dude?” Benrey tilted his head curiously. “You look like you gotta shit. Gonna take a word dump? Turds with friends?”
“Please stop making poop jokes. God, you’re worse than my seven year old.” Gordon shook his head, a few of his curls falling out of his ponytail. “Okay, I’m gonna ask something, and if the answer isn’t what I think it is, I’m going to sound like a lunatic, but bear with me. Was it really you showing up in my dreams lately?”
“Yo, you’re dreaming about me?” Benrey grinned, unable to resist being a little shit for a second. “Take me out to dinner first, man. Gonna propose next?”
Benrey could practically see the life leave Gordon’s eyes as mortification took over. “So that wasn’t-”
“Oh, no, that was me. We’ve been in shared dreamscape purgatory together, friend.”
“Thank god.” Gordon heaved a sigh of relief. “I mean, it sucks, I haven’t gotten a good night of sleep all week, but I’m glad this isn’t some bullshit my brain has been inventing.”
“Nah, it’s something else. Dunno what.” Benrey shrugged, leaning back on the couch. Gordon mirrored them, frowning thoughtfully.
“Me neither. I, uh, I tried looking into it, but it’s not like Wikipedia has an article on dreamsharing with the antagonist of the video game you just realized you were the protagonist of.”
“Plus we destroyed Wikipedia.”
“That too,” Gordon said with a snort. “Great job there, dude.” Gordon leaned back and put his arm across the back of the couch, turning towards Benrey a little. “Okay, but seriously, why are you here?”
“‘Cause it’s the first room in your house. I can go snooping through the bedrooms if you want. See if you’ve got any contraband.” Gordon lightly smacked the back of Benrey’s helmet, the metal of his hand clacking as it connected with the metal of his helmet. “Ow.”
“You know what I was fucking asking, dude. Also, why the hell are you still wearing this stupid thing? Do you ever take it off?”
“Wow, first you’re dreaming of me, now you’re askin’ me to strip?” Benrey teased, but they tugged the helmet off anyway, shaking out dark, regulation cut hair and placing the helmet on their lap. “I’m here ‘cause I wanna be, man. I already told you. Black Mesa got ‘sploded, and all my stuff was there. Xen sucks major balls. Can’t sleep all the time and I wouldn’t wanna be in the void anyway. So. Thought I’d hang out with my best friend Gordo.”
“Are you sure that’s it? Or do you just want to be here to annoy me?”
“Yeah, hang out.”
Gordon snorted and shook his head. “I can’t believe this is where I’m at in my life, but… yeah, fuck it, I don’t have anything better to do. Have you ever actually played those Lego games?”
They spent the rest of the afternoon plowing through the original trilogy levels in Lego Star Wars. Benrey was absolutely terrible at it, though he acted like he knew the secret strategies to win every level. Gordon had no idea whether Benrey was dying over and over to annoy him or because they genuinely sucked at the game, but at least it was the fun kind of annoying.
Benrey wouldn’t say it out loud, but the afternoon relieved him of a worry he wasn’t even fully conscious of having. The game was over, they weren't technically the antagonist anymore, but some corner of their brain was still worried they would be at each other’s throats forever. Turns out, when they weren’t in a life or death situation, Gordon laughed at a lot more of his jokes. The simple experience of making Gordon throw his head back and laugh made Benrey happier than they’d like to admit.
Other than a brief intermission to microwave leftover pizza for dinner -- an absolutely decadent meal to someone who had only ever eaten large alien insects and low polygon government issued slop -- they played until it got dark and then some. It wasn’t until Gordon started yawning and fumbling with the controls more than Benrey that they finally stopped.
“I should probably be going to bed, man,” Gordon said, turning off the game and standing. “Do you… You don’t have anywhere to stay, do you.”
Benrey shook his head.
“Alright, follow me,” Gordon sighed, gesturing down the hall. Benrey followed him to a small guest bedroom next to the living room. “Bathroom’s down the hall. Sheets are clean, but there are extra blankets in the closet if you get cold.”
“Dope.” Benrey climbed on top of the quilt, still wearing their uniform, vest and boots and all. Gordon frowned at him.
“Do you own any clothes other than your uniform?”
“Nope,” Benrey said, popping the “p.”
“Ugh. Hold on.” Gordon disappeared down the hall. Benrey remembered it was impolite to wear shoes in bed, so they sat up to unlace their boots. Gordon reappeared in the doorway and tossed a pair of sweatpants and a faded MIT shirt at him. “Those are probably enormous on you, but they’ve gotta be more comfortable than slacks. Have you seriously been sleeping in those every night?”
“Yeah.” Benrey shrugged off his vest and started unbuttoning their shirt. He then paused and glanced up at Gordon still standing in the doorway. “Turn around please?”
“Shit, right, sorry.” Gordon had the decency to look embarrassed, turning on his heel. “I’ll just- I’ll just go to bed. Right. Bye.”
“Mm, g’night. Oh, hey, Gordon?” Benrey called out before he could go, pulling the soft cotton shirt over their shoulders. Gordon stopped, looking surprised to be referred to by name. “Thanks.”
Gordon smiled despite himself. “Just don’t go burning my house down in my sleep,” was all he said, tapping a hand on the doorframe as he left.
Benrey fell asleep that night in the softest clothes he’d ever worn in his pre-programmed existence.